SMART
PEOPLE IN FUNNY HATS:
USU faculty members stream into the Spectrum
for commencement ceremonies. / Photo
by Bryan Williams

Today's
word on journalism

May 9, 2008

Liberal
Patriot:

"Molly
Ivins was an unabashed patriot, and
it drove right-wingers nuts. Conservatives
somehow got it fixed in their brains
that patriotism meant being in lockstep
with their ideology, that dissent
was treason. Molly made a career of
reminding them otherwise, always careful
to point out how cute they were when
they acted like fools."

--Gary Cartwright, senior editor,
Texas Monthly, 2007. Molly Ivins (1944-2007),
a sharp-witted and clear-eyed columnist
who died of cancer last year, was
an unapologetic liberal. She once
observed, "There's nothing you
can do about being born liberal --
fish gotta swim and hearts gotta bleed."

April 28, 2008 | Utah State's newest club, Psychedelic
Improv, held its final performance for the year Thursday
night at the Taggart Student Center auditorium. They
played games like the ones you see on the television
show Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Some of the games required audience participation,
while others were classic theater games or warm-up exercises.
The show even included two performances of the scariest,
smelliest games, Bucket of Death and Blindfolded Mousetraps.
It was quite a sight to see, and several audience members
were heard saying it made them queasy to watch.

The basic concept of Bucket of Death was three actors
playing out a scene with two actors on stage while the
third had his or her head in a bucket of slop. One bucket
was filled with mashed potatoes, one with chocolate
pudding and the third bucket was filled with Top Ramen.
The actors had to play out the scene and create excuses
to leave and rescue their friend from the bucket of
death, and once out of the bucket the actors had to
explain why they had goo on their face.

Blindfolded Mousetraps was a tense five- to seven-minute
scene where three actors had to play out a scene blindfolded
and barefoot while trying purposely to set off mousetraps
on the floor. The show ended with a round of applause
for the cast and the officers of the club: Johnathan
Terry, founder and president; Lee Phillips, vice president;
Jessica Cooper, secretary; Greg Probst, activities coordinator
and Steve Schwartzman, public relations.